arrondissment and demanded the immediate execution of the hostages held at the prison of La Roquette. The new prosecutor of the Commune, Ferré hesitated and then wrote a note authorizing the executions. Genton asked for volunteers to serve as a firing squad, and went to the La Roquette prison, where many of the hostages were being held. Genton selected six names from the list of hostages, including Georges Darboy, the Abbe Deguerry, Bonjean (président de chambre à la Cour de cassation), and Allard, Clerc, Ducoudray, three members of the Society of Jesus. The Director of the Prison, Francois, refused to give up the Archbishop without a specific order from the Commune. Genton sent a deputy back to Ferré to seek this. Ferré replied with the order, writing "and especially the archbishop" on the bottom of his note. The six hostages were then taken out into the courtyard of the prison, lined up against the wall, and shot. Defenders of the Commune later tried to justify the action of Ferré as an act of retaliation for the summary executions carried out by the French Army during Bloody Week. Ferré was later captured by French government forces. He was tried and sentenced to death at a court martial in August 1871. Early on the morning of the 28 November, he was executed by firing squad, alongside Louis Rossel and Pierre Bourgeois, former French Army members who had defected to the Commune. Ferré declined a blindfold, but was only wounded by the firing squad's volley. He was killed by a single shot fired as a coup de grâce. Gustave Genton was also executed for his role in the killing of the hostages. Louise Michel, the famed "Red Virgin" of the Commune celebrated in a poem by Victor Hugo, was deeply in love with Théophile Ferré. Both were from the same district: Montmartre. Both took the same defiant attitude at their trial, as described by Lissagaray in his Histoire de la Commune de 1871 (Bruxelles: Kistemaeckers ed, 1876), and both were eventually buried (Michel died in 1905) in the same cemetery. References Sources Prosper Olivier Lissagaray: Histoire de la Commune de 1871 (1876) Paris: Librairie Marcel Rivière - Bibliothèque des Sciences Politiques et Sociales, 1947 Bernard Noël: Dictionnaire de la Commune Paris: Champs Flammarion, 1978 1846 births 1871 deaths Politicians from Paris Burials at Levallois-Perret Cemetery People of Montmartre Communards Executed French people French